A few events recently got me thinking about what might be happening in the future of local search advertising. I’m calling it “proximity advertising” because the terms “geo-fencing” and “local search” are separate terms that need to merge in advertising, and they are not as accurate, nor very eloquent.
In the span of just 3 days, I followed two Apple Maps vans though the mountains. I drove down a street to see a WAZE vehicle pass in the opposite direction. Then I drove near Moffet Field (Silicon Valley) and another similar but unmarked vehicle pulled out of the (unknown) facilities over by Lockheed Martin Way (where you can’t get Google Maps street view) oh! the hypocrisy! It seems every company and government contractor is driving a street level mapping vehicle.
There is also the seemingly unrelated change Google has made concerning SERPs and Places displays. All of these things got me thinking about the future of local search advertising. It seems suddenly obvious that the next big thing is Geo-Fencing/Proximity Advertising. As is typical in the early days of a technology, there is a lot of hype and confusion about what geo-fencing is, so lets clarify what it is and what we think is really happening.
Proximity Advertising
Geo-fencing is just one element of “proximity advertising”. When you move into an area (a geo-fenced area), …read more about Proximity Advertising